According to the objectives given by the Russian space agency (Roscosmos) to industry, a future rocket should be able to hoist a payload three times heavier than Russia's veteran Soyuz spacecraft, including twice the number of crew, and use environmentally friendly propellants.

The development of the new rocket should be accompanied by work on Russia's next-generation manned spacecraft, which will use it to get into orbit.

Russian space officials say the yet-to-be-named rocket should carry its first manned spacecraft in 2018. The project was timed to roughly coincide with the US space agency's (Nasa) plans to return astronauts to the Moon by 2020 under its Constellation programme.

Although Roskosmos made no official announcement on the matter, unofficial postings on the forum of the Novosti Kosmonavtiki magazine indicated that by the end of 2008, Roskosmos settled for a two-stage launch vehicle developed by the conglomerate of RKK Energia in Podlipki, TsSKB Progress in Samara and KB Mashinostroeniya in Miass.The first stage would consist of three standard boosters equipped with RD-180 engines. Since the Technical Assignment for the program reportedly required the construction of as many as 15 launchers, it could require the production of as many as 45 engines a year. With the moderate rate of four launches a year, 12 engines would be required annually. Due to such high numbers of required engines and the need to produce same hardware for the American Atlas rocket, it looked possible that an additional manufacturer based in the city of Perm would be brought into the project. The same company was responsible for mass production of RD-191 engine for the Angara rocket.

The second stage of the vehicle had to be powered either by kerosene or hydrogen according to the Technical Assignment of the Russian space agency. Perminov expressed the opinion that hydrogen would be used.

Robert Pearlman

RIA Novosti:

Russia's Federal Space Agency has announced that the Rocket and Space Corporation (RSC) Energia has won its competition for the draft design of a new manned space vehicle, reported the managers of Roscosmos' manned programs.

"The contest, which involved the two leading Russian space companies -- RKK Energia and Khrunichev Center -- is completed. The winner as announced is RSC Energia," said an agency spokesperson.

Roscosmos' head of manned programs Alexei Krasnov confirmed this, adding that on Tuesday the results of the contract will be published on the Federal Space Agency's website.

Terms of the contract for the draft design extend from March 2009 to June 2010. The contract is valued at 800 million rubles [$23.9 million].

"We plan to enter the market in 2015 with an unmanned spacecraft and are likely to launch it from the new Vostochny space center. In 2017, a piloted spacecraft should also be developed," Vitaly Lopota, the head of Russia's Energia space corporation, said.